SHANMUGAM IAS ACADEMY

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

SC agrees to hear Centre's plea to grant quota for minorities

The
Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear Centre's plea seeking interim order for
implementation of 4.5 per cent sub-quota for backward classes belonging to
minorities in central educational institutions which was quashed by the Andhra
Pradesh High Court.

A bench headed by Justice K S Radhakrishnan asked the
government to file a proper application seeking modification of its earlier
order in which it had refused to stay the High Court order. Solicitor
General Mohan Prasaran submitted that in a similar case the apex court had
permitted the Andhra Pradesh government to implement reservation for backward
Muslims within the state till the matter is decided by it.

"It
is respectfully submitted that to avoid ambiguity and inconsistency,
particularly when a larger bench has passed an interim order on the same issue
and when the matter has been referred to a Constitution Bench, it is only
logical to extend benefit of the same interim order to the present case as
well," the Centre said. The petitioner, on whose plea the High Court had
quashed Centre's decision, opposed the Centre's plea, saying that it is
politically motivated with an eye on elections. The bench, however, said that
it will look into the issue.

The
apex court in June, 2012 had refused to stay the High Court order that quashed
4.5 per cent sub-quota and had ticked off the government for the way it had
handled the "complex and sensitive issue". The UPA government had announced the sub-quota
of 4.5 per cent for socially and educationally backward people belonging to
minority communities on December 22, 2011. It envisages carving this sub-quota
out of the existing 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

On
May 28, 2012, the Andhra Pradesh High Court had struck down the government's
sub-quota for minorities, and had held that the Centre acted in a "casual
manner". It had said that the government Office Memorandum (OM) creating
the sub-quota was based on religious grounds and not on any other intelligible
consideration. "No evidence has
been shown to us by the learned Assistant Solicitor General to justify the
classification of these religious minorities as a homogeneous group or as more
backward classes deserving some special treatment".

"We
must therefore, hold that Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and
Zoroastrians (Parsis) do not form a homogeneous group but a heterogeneous
group," the bench had observed.